


As Time Goes By

by 0Rocky41_7



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Depression, F/M, Family, Gen, M/M, Recovery, Sisterly bonding, face - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-11-08
Updated: 2013-11-10
Packaged: 2017-12-31 21:36:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,902
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1036652
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/0Rocky41_7/pseuds/0Rocky41_7
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Amelia F. Jones, devastated by the death of her beloved husband, must learn to move on afterwards, even in the midst of family drama and her own loss of direction. Her twin sister Madeline faces her own painful challenges as she tries to help Amelia get over her grief. Their foster parents, Arthur and Francis, offer support from afar.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Situation

The echo of the door closing bounced hollowly off the walls of the house. The entrance hall was trimmed with white wood about a third of the way up the wall, where it was replaced with red wallpaper, adored with golden fleur-de-lis. A dark mahogany table rested against one wall, beneath a rectangular mirror ensconced in a golden frame. On the table was a porcelain bowl, perhaps white, though it was hard to tell under the many things that filled it, overflowing onto the table. Off to the side of the door was a potted plant; a small tree of some kind, with broad, dark green leaves. Narrow windows from floor to ceiling on either side of the door and a long rug leading deeper into the house completed it.

  
    Following the sound of the door was the equally hollow clicking and clanging of the keys dropping into the packed bowl on the table. There was the thump of her purse on the floor along with her coat; she couldn’t even be bothered to put them away where they went.

  
    Amelia F. Jones was not a neat person to begin with, but of late even her apathy had grown out of proportion. Usually her slovenliness stemmed from the fact that she was bursting at the seams with energy and plans and activity and simply couldn’t be bothered to remember or take the time to clean up, but these days she had nothing but time and no desire to fill it with anything.

  
    She went into the kitchen, looked around and considered making herself some dinner. She glanced at the clock. It was 5:24. She had just gotten home from work, as she’d been given permission to leave early today. She looked at the stove and then turned around and went into the living room, where she collapsed on the couch and stared at the ceiling.

  
    The living room was on the other side of the entrance hall, with a great big French window looking out into the garden that had once been very well and lovingly kept.  The couch was red and across from it was a fireplace with various trinkets on the white mantle. A pair of armchairs sat nearby, around a square carpet and a squat, yet elegant, coffee table. There were a few bookshelves of various size squeezed into the room.

  
    Reaching over the arm of the couch and moving as little as possible, Amelia pressed a button on her landline to hear the messages she’d gotten in the past week, making a mental note to consider listening to them more often.

  
The first was from the public library, informing her that she had a book which was four months overdue.

  
The second was from her foster father, Arthur, telling her that she really did need to call him back and would she please do so in a timely fashion? She was being quite rude by ignoring her friends at a time like this. Amelia supposed that was his way of trying to reach out to her.

  
    The last was the only one Amelia really listened to; it was from her twin sister Madeline, pleading for her to call. Madeline was quite adamant about it; she even threatened with coming down from her home in New Brunswick, Canada, to Amelia’s home in Maine to force Amelia to talk to her. Amelia appreciated her concern, but she didn’t feel like talking. She deleted the messages.

  
    She lay on the couch, taking a pillow to huge against her chest, and looked up at the ceiling, which had funny little bumps on it. They were supposed to absorb sound, but the running joke amongst friends and family had been that nothing could tame the racket that followed Amelia around like a cloud, whether it be from her boisterous, enthusiastic tone or the many things she slammed around or knocked over. Lately though, it was all she could not to lie on this couch all day and stare listlessly at the ceiling. That was the word she had overheard Arthur using to his husband Francis about her: listless. It was apt enough, Amelia thought, though she didn’t think she liked it being applied to her. Listless wasn’t something she’d have ever thought would be used to describe her. Vibrant. Loud. Full of life. Obnoxious, even. But not listless.

  
    And yet, listless she was. She made an effort to draw herself into a sitting position and set the pillow aside. At that moment, her dog-a small, tan creature-wandered up to her and snuffled her hand.  
    “I guess you want a walk, eh boy?” she asked him. From the tone she used, she might as well have been asking if he wanted her to pull the plug on his life support.  Even the dog had been picking up on Amelia’s mood; both he and the cat remained oddly quiet in her time of distress.

  
    Heaving herself of the couch was a herculean task, but she managed. She attached the dog’s leash and replaced her coat; the one she had thrown on the floor when she entered. Grabbing a hat from the closet, she opened up the front door and they went down the set of four white steps that led into the yard. A cool breeze blew over them, rustling the trees and promising an end to summer soon. Amelia couldn’t wait. Summer had always been her favorite season-the one she was born in, on a scorching July day-but this summer felt as though it had dragged on for eons. She led the dog at a slow pace down the sidewalk, allotting him plenty of time to sniff at plants and “get the news”. Her feet seemed to be carrying her somewhere of their own accord; her mind was a million miles away; a foggy, distant look in her normally alert blue eyes.

  
    The walk was a long one, but by the time she realized where her feet were taking her, she couldn’t turn around. She was both repulsed and drawn in by the path ahead of her and she knew she couldn’t bail out now. Down the cracked sidewalk, past the wrought iron fence, through the foreboding gate. Gray clouds drifted overhead, hovering threateningly at the edge of the sky, as if to remind the sun it had only so many days left to shine unobstructed. Amelia closed the gate behind her and let go of the leash; she trusted the dog not to run away. Her feet wandered through a twisted path, giving obstacles around her a wide berth until at last she came to the end of her trek and fell to her knees in the grass. In front of her was a headstone, a simple affair with just a few words carved into it. Amelia reached out and traced them with her fingertips. They were as familiar to her as her own name; she often dreamt about these very words, carved into this very stone.

_Kiku Honda_   
_1976-2012_   
_Beloved husband, avid gamer and shrewd businessman_

  
    It was her husband’s headstone.

  
    Amelia sensed the dog straying and called out quietly to him, “Pochi…come here…” He trotted back over to her and she drew him onto her lap, muddy paws and all, staring over his head at the grave. Her husband had been just 36 when he died. Amelia herself was only 28, which had raised quite a few eyebrows when she had gotten married at the age of 22 to a 30 year old. But she had always been sure that Kiku was the one; she had never doubted it, not for a minute. Not even when he himself might have been doubting it.

  
    Amelia gave her all into everything she did; no undertaking of Amelia’s was half-hearted. And thus, she had loved Kiku with everything in her, she had given him over every part of her heart, surrendered herself entirely to their love and losing him had been the most devastating event in her life, even more so than when she had been forced into court to demand to be taken out of her foster father Arthur’s care.

  
    It had been two months since Kiku’s death and Amelia hadn’t recovered in the slightest. She had rather become a hermit and refused all calls from friends and family. When they came over, she pretended not to be home. She hardly spoke at work and had lost all interest in her hobbies. It had been five weeks since she last picked up her gaming controller and played some Halo or Call of Duty. These were things she had once taken the utmost pleasure in.

  
    She had tried, a few weeks after his death, late one night. She had thought that a bit of video gaming might take her mind off of it, but when she opened up the load screen, she saw his game sitting there, right beneath hers. He still had the high score-she had been trying to beat it for days and hadn’t managed before he died. She had thrown the controller away as though it were a large and poisonous spider and spent the next hour sobbing into a pillow while Tama, the cat, sat by on a worn recliner and watched with disapproval at her noisy display.

  
    She hadn’t tried again since. In fact, she avoided the den altogether-which was easy to do, as it was one of only three rooms downstairs in the basement, including a bathroom and the laundry room. Video games had been one of the things she and Kiku had bonded over in the friendship that came before their romance. She couldn’t bear to play them anymore; she couldn’t do it without remembering countless hours spent shouting and cursing and cheering and spitting back and forth taunts and banter between her and Kiku; the way they would both bundle up and go stand out in the cold to await a new game like the nerds they were or the stress of choosing the perfect cosplay for a gaming convention; their unspoken agreement to team up against anyone who dared to play with the both of them.

  
    Even thinking about him still brought tears to her eyes and she pressed her face into Pochi’s fur as the moist globules began to slide down her cheeks once again. She hugged the dog close and stared at Kiku’s grave as if she was waiting for him to speak to her, to tell her what she was supposed to do now and when he didn’t, the fury that overwhelmed her almost choked her. She coughed out a sob and squeezed Pochi until he whimpered to be let go. 

  
    “Sorry,” she whispered to him, releasing him and trying to dry her eyes on her coat sleeve. She gave a tug at her hair, which was limp and lanky: she hadn’t washed it in days. She got into the shower, stood in the burning water for a while and then got back out without bothering to wash anything. She didn’t even have the energy or willpower to shower anymore.

  
    The whole time she’d been with Kiku, it had seemed like he was the one dependent on her. Amelia was such a wild, free spirit that everyone assumed she’d be perfectly fine to leave him and go on her own way, though she would grieve, but when Kiku finally confessed (AT LAST!) his love to her, everyone-Kiku and Amelia included-thought him much more dependent on Amelia’s love than she was on his. She knew now how wrong they all were-she was lost now, without her beloved. Whereas before she had always known herself, had always had a plan and a can-do attitude, she felt as though some great and vital part of her had been violently torn out when she lost Kiku and that she was now just drifting about, a shade of her former self, half dead herself and just waiting to rejoin him and the thought of her own uselessness and inevitable death terrified her. She barely slept most nights and had dark circles under her eyes.

  
    Evening was stretching into nighttime now; the sky was deepening into a twilight purple and she knew she had to get home now. She retrieved Pochi and left the graveyard, shuffling home and wiping the tearstains off her sun-kissed cheeks.

  
    At home, she cooked her usual dinner of top ramen and ate in silence before retiring to her room, reading for a while and then turning off the light. She didn’t sleep more than four hours in total that night, not counting the nightmares.  



	2. Madeline Pays a Visit

The next few days passed in relative monotony. Amelia worked. She watched TV. She thought about Kiku trying too hard not to think about Kiku. On Saturday she rolled out of bed at 11 o’clock and didn’t bother getting dressed. She got herself a mug of decaf coffee and went into the living room, where she dragged out the little TV they kept in there, now used for the sole purpose of avoiding the den. She turned it on to an early morning soap opera and curled up with Tama and a heavy gold blanket with a fringe to watch.

                She was well into it when the doorbell rang.

                As antisocial as she had been over the past two months, Amelia ignored it. A voice shouting at her interfered with the sound of her TV and she found it mildly irritating.

                “Amelia! Amelia, I know you’re in there! Amelia F. Jones, you open this door _right now_ , eh!” Amelia immediately recognized her sister’s voice (she must have decided to go through with her threat to come down), but ignored her anyway. Normally this would give her a deep sense of guilt, which would make it impossible to do for very long, but Amelia didn’t feel much at all anymore. She heard a muffled crunching sound and jumped as Madeline started to rap on the window.  “Amelia, let me in! You can’t stay closed off forever!” Her voice was clearer now. Amelia looked her sister right in the face, reached over and closed the curtains. She could picture Madeline’s expression of outrage well enough without looking.

                Sinking lower on the couch, she clutched her cooling mug of coffee closer and turned up the volume. A voice in her mind asked her if it was very polite to leave her sister standing in the bushes out in the front yard, especially as she had come all the way from New Brunswick to visit. The voice reminded her of Kiku—he had been terminally polite, to the point where Amelia had been forced to step in and be rather rude, just to extricate them from some situation Kiku had gotten them into by being unable to say no. _I didn’t ask her to come,_ Amelia thought sullenly. _She’s disturbing my peace. If I had wanted to talk, I would have called her back one of the eight million times she left a message._

 _But she is your sister,_ the voice reminded her. _She only came because she cares about you._

 _I don’t care. I didn’t ask anyone to intrude on me. She can get at a room in town._ Amelia shut down the argument in her head and when she saw her TV program was over, she turned it off and closed her eyes. She needed a nap after that sleepless night.

                She was jolted awake by the sound of the phone ringing and out of habit, her hand flew out and snatched it up. She opened her mouth to say hello, but then closed it when she remembered she didn’t want to talk to anyone. But any fears of awkward silence were immediately dispelled when the voice on the other end began to bellow at her in a thick Londoner accent.

                _“AMELIA F. JONES!_ Did you lock your sister out of your house? Did you? Of all the ungrateful, rude, ill-mannered things I have ever heard of! I taught you better than that young lady! How dare you be so rude to your own sister? Is that how I raised you? IS IT? You better apologize and let her back in right now, you thoughtless heathen! I don’t care how upset you are you’ve got no cause to be RUDE!” Arthur made it sound as if being rude was something akin to mass murder. Amelia had been amused before to hear him berate her for rudeness; it had been funny then. Everything had been funny then.  “Are you listening to me, Amelia Jones? You had better be—”

Arthur was momentarily interrupted by Francis’ equally thick French accent in the background, sounding about as livid as Arthur. Amelia knew Madeline must have come straight to them and been very upset if Francis was angry too. She couldn’t quite make out what he was saying, but Arthur quickly fixed that problem.

“Yes, that’s right! Madeline called us in _tears_ , Amelia, you selfish, fickle thing!” Francis continued yelling at the phone from wherever he was standing about the travesty of Madeline’s tears.  “Apologize to your sister! And if I ever hear about such goings-on again, I will come down there personally to—” While Arthur was trying to think of what exactly he was going to do (which did NOT involve spanking, of course, because Amelia was much too old for that, what had he been thinking, but there had to be something else he could do…), Francis tried to grab the phone so he too, could share with Amelia what he thought about her treatment of Madeline, causing a scuffle to ensue between the two men over the phone.

“Let me talk to her! Madeline is my daughter too, Arthur!”

“Let go, frog, Amelia is my daughter and I will scold her myself!”

“You’ve done quite enough of that; I’ll be stunned you don’t lose your voice!”

There was the sound of furniture being upset and then a yelp of pain, along with what Amelia would guess was Arthur thumping Francis over the head with the phone. At that point, Amelia hung up. She felt a twinge of guilt for making Madeline cry, but why couldn’t she see that Amelia just wanted to be left alone? Was that so hard for everyone to understand? That she just wanted to be left alone? Sighing heavily, Amelia got up, upsetting Tama in the process, and went into the kitchen where she set about making herself a pot of Jasmine tea, something Kiku had introduced her to. She looked through the archway and out the window in the dining room; a French one to match the window in the living room, and thought that Madeline would probably return now that she was under the impression Arthur and Francis had talked some sense into Amelia.             

She would have to do something to avoid talking to Madeline. She picked up a phone and dialed her work number. Yong-soo answered.

“Hey…Yong-soo...its Amelia...”

“Yeah, I know,” he replied. “What are you calling here for? It’s your day off!”

“I know…but I wanted to come in anyway…is that okay?” Something in her tone must have sounded desperate, because she could hear Yong-soo covering the phone and some muffled voices before he popped back on.

“Sure, but I don’t see why you’d want to! Work is a drag!” There was a long, pregnant pause while Amelia debated admitting that she really just wanted something to do and Yong-soo realized his mistake. “But uh…you can come in if you want; business is pretty slow, it’d be nice to have somebody to talk to.” Amelia nodded a moment before she remembered she was on the phone.

“Okay…I’ll be down in a few…Bye.”

“Bye!”

Amelia stared at the phone a few seconds after Yong-soo had hung up. Once, she had been one of the few people who could keep up with the Korean’s vivacity and zeal. It was what had made them friends. But since she had become a walking ball of grief and mourning, Yong-soo had been avoiding her. It hurt, but she couldn’t blame him; she was no fun anymore. She trudged upstairs and forced herself to shower and put some effort into dressing. She wore jeans and a green top with a white button down shirt thrown over it. In this, she got into her car and drove down to her job at Paddy Coyne’s Pub and Restaurant, where she was a hostess.

Since her expression and demeanor had been so “ass-dragging” lately, as her boss described it, Amelia had become the default waiter in charge of doing things wherever the customers couldn’t see her. The big man in charge didn’t want her depressing their customers, although Amelia was distantly grateful she hadn’t been demoted from her post of hostess. But Yong-soo had been right about today- it was dead, despite it being prime lunch hour.

“Probably the new yogurt place down the street,” he said, “They’re stealing our business.” Yong-soo was perpetually under the impression that anything that went wrong for their restaurant was the fault of the new yogurt place down the street, which by now, wasn’t so new anymore.  Amelia just shrugged and grabbed a wet rag to wipe down the salad bar even though it was almost perfectly clean. She did a few other jobs most often avoided until absolutely necessary—washing the windows, scrubbing out the cabinets and scraping the gum off the undersides of the tables. As she was carrying her treasure-sack of ABC gum, Yong-soo finally approached her to break the silence that had settled over the place (the cooks in the back had been very quiet).

“Hey Amelia…” He rubbed the back of his head. “Are you okay? I mean…it’s been two months…and you’re not talking to anyone…”

She looked him up and down and could tell he really didn’t want to have this conversation; he merely felt obligated to as her friend. “I’m fine,” she said quietly, continuing past him and dumping the plastic bag full of gum into the garbage.

She finished the rest of the shift in relative silence; they got a few customers at lunch and a small rush at dinner, for which she did her best not to look mournful. By the end of the day, Yong-soo looked relieved to escape Amelia’s sorrowful aura, though he did glance back as they parted ways a few times, wondering if he should offer her a ride home or something. Then she got into her truck and he banished the idea. Best to just leave her be; that was what she wanted.

When Amelia’s rusty red truck turned to pull into her driveway, there was another car parked there. Red flags went up and she immediately tried to back out again, but someone grabbed her door handle and wrenched it open. A hand latched onto her forearm and dragged her out.

“Here you go,” said a gruff voice, depositing Amelia on the driveway as Madeline ran down to her from the door.

“Thanks Gil,” she said, nodding to none other than Gilbert Beilschmidt, who had apparently been recruited by Madeline to trap Amelia into talking to her sister. She turned around and managed a scowl for him, which he responded to with his usual annoying grin. He flashed them a thumbs up.

“See ya later chickies!” he crowed, hopping into his BMW and peeling off into the night. _What a douche,_ Amelia thought, though she enjoyed speeding herself on occasion. She snapped her head over to look at Madeline, who was twisting her hands together as if having second thoughts about this. For a long time, the two sisters just looked at each other.

At last Madeline said, “Can we go inside? I’ll make you some maple tea.” Amelia conceded defeat and snatched her keys and purse from the car with a nasty look before striding up through the yard and into the house. She threw her things onto the table so roughly that her purse bounced off the wall and rolled onto the ground. Tip-toeing after her sister, Madeline picked up the purse and set it upright on the table. Amelia set out the teapot and some cups and then leaned against the counter, summoning up enough feeling to glare resentfully at Madeline as she moved about the kitchen, trying to ignore her sibling’s ire.

“I didn’t ask you to come,” Amelia said at last.

“What’s your point?” Madeline replied, her soft voice straining as she tried to match the volume and emotion that came so easily to Amelia, even in her depressed state.

“I don’t want you here,” Amelia said bluntly. Madeline turned from the stove to look at her twin, unable to disguise the hurt that blossomed on her face.

“Em…I only came to help.” Her voice was a near whisper. “We’re worried about you, we all are! It’s hard losing someone you love, especially after mom and dad-”

“This isn’t like that,” Amelia interjected rudely. “We didn’t even know them. We don’t even remember them, Maddie.”

Madeline was crushed into silence for a few minutes, staring down at the teapot before turning to face her sister fully. “This isn’t healthy, Amelia. You can’t just cut yourself off from the world like this!” The pitch of Madeline’s voice rose as she strove to make her sister understand.

“I can do whatever I want.” Amelia crossed her arms and from her body position and tone, Madeline knew she was taking this visit as an attack and her heart sank. Amelia might be friendly, but Madeline knew there was nothing she liked more than fighting and she could outlast almost anyone. If she was going to treat Madeline like her enemy right now, Madeline was never going to get through to her.

“Can’t you see how much you’re hurting the people who love you?” Madeline felt tears stinging her eyes at the uselessness of her words and the tragedy of Amelia’s liveliness being destroyed by this travesty in her life.

“I just want to be left alone.” Amelia flicked her eyes away, her jaw set stubbornly. But Madeline detected a slight hint of guilt; she knew her sister well and she could tell that Amelia wasn’t as oblivious or impervious to their hurt as she pretended to be.

“Em, please,” she said, walking over and putting a hand on Amelia’s elbow. “Talk to us…at least come visit…we want to help you; we’re here for you.” She had mis-stepped, or perhaps it wasn’t her fault at all, merely a turn in Amelia’s mood, but the young woman shoved Madeline away from her.

“I don’t need you all!” she shouted, balling her fists up. “I’m fine on my own! I’ve always been fine! Why can’t you all just stop pretending to understand how I feel? I’m tired of your pity and your sad looks and your comfort! I just want to be left the hell alone!” She swiped a hand out and knocked the tea cups off the counter; they hit the floor and cracked, the handle of one shattered. She pushed past Madeline and stormed up the stairs, slamming her door closed. Madeline flinched, but stooped quietly and cleaned up the mess Amelia had left, getting two cups to replace the broken ones and filling them with maple tea when it was finished.

She put them on a tray and carried it upstairs, knocking softly on Amelia’s door. When there was no response, she assumed it was safe and tried to push the door open, but it was locked. “Em?”

                Amelia didn’t respond; she sat on the edge of her bed, holding a photograph in her lap. She lay on her side and rolled over with her back to the door, holding the photograph to her chest. She didn’t want to talk. She didn’t want company. She wanted to be left alone to die. That was it…she wanted to die. She heard Madeline knock a few more times before there was a sigh and the sound of footsteps fading into the distance. Amelia closed her eyes and tightened her grip on the picture. It was a photograph taken of her and Kiku at a party; she couldn’t even remember which one now. All that mattered was that it was a picture of them together.

                She closed her eyes and curled into a little ball, trying to ignore the big space on Kiku’s side of the bed. If she tried hard enough, if she wished and imagined and hoped hard enough and cried enough tears, she could open her eyes and he’d be sitting there working on something much past the proper hour for such things or reading manga and he’d ask her what she was doing because Amelia was always doing something strange in Kiku’s eyes. But when she opened them, the bed was as empty as ever and she felt all the more wretched for ever having believed-even in foolish jest-that things might be different. She bit her lip and swallowed the tears that rose in her eyes, pulling the blankets over her head with one hand, like she did when she was little and wanted to hide from the monsters under her bed and in the closet. Only now, she wanted to hide from the world.


End file.
